Digital elevation model generation using multibaseline advanced land observing satellite/phased array type L-band synthetic aperture radar imagery

The digital elevation model (DEM) forms fundamental topographical data for many scientific and engineering purposes including hydrology, geology, and civil applications. Using active and passive satellite remote sensing, it is an efficient and cost-effective approach to acquire up-to-date, accurate land cover and topographic information. One of the most important applications of interferometric synthetic aperture radar (SAR) technology is the determination of three-dimensional topographical information. Interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) DEM generation uses the measurement of the phase difference between two complex radar signals, or the difference in distance between satellite-borne SAR sensors and ground targets from two imaging passes. The parameters of the final DEM are related to the information contained within the master image. In addition, InSAR DEMs generated with different master images have varying grid sizes and location despite using the same coordinate systems. Consequently, the InSAR method can generate a multiplicity of DEMs using different combinations of the SAR image pairs. The authors propose a method that exploits the information contained in the area of overlap between different master and perpendicular baseline InSAR DEMs.